Emmanuel Macron said Thursday, February 18, in an interview with Financial Times, which he was going to suggest to the leaders of the G7 to transfer 3 to 5% of their stocks of anti-Covid vaccines to African countries which are sorely lacking. “I say: ‘Let’s transfer 3% or 5% today of the vaccines we have in stock to Africa.’ This has no impact on the pace of the vaccination strategy (in rich countries). It does not slow it down a day, given today the use of our doses, “he said, adding that Angela Merkel” agreed “with this idea.
“It is in the interest of the French and Europeans”, because “I have more than 10 million of our fellow citizens who have families on the other side of the Mediterranean”, underlined Emmanuel Macron. “If we allow the idea to settle that hundreds of millions of vaccines are being made in rich countries and that we do not start in poor countries, it is unsustainable,” he said. he adds. “It is rather an acceleration of unprecedented global inequalities” and “it is politically unsustainable in the long term because it is what allows to install a war of influence of vaccines. And you can see the Chinese strategy, the Russian strategy too. ”
Vaccine donations or low-cost sales
It is necessary, according to him, “to put a very strong pressure” on the big pharmaceutical companies to increase the production of vaccines. If they “do not play the game of cooperation, the political question of intellectual property will inevitably rise in all our countries”, as well as “the debate of the surplus profits made on the scarcity of the vaccine”. “The objective is to bring on board a maximum of European and non-European partners. But if everyone is not on board, France will commit ”and give these 5% of doses, specified the Elysee. These will be either donations or low cost sales.
“We very much hope that tomorrow [au G7] the United States will show a greater commitment, including financial ”in the Covax device for the allocation of vaccines to poor countries, added the Élysée.
Macron on all fronts
“The mechanism for donating doses is open to the Russians and the Chinese. The Chinese often recall their adherence to multilateralism, they have the opportunity with Covax to prove it, rather than a bilateral approach with a logic of vaccine diplomacy, or even patronage, ”noted Paris.
Emmanuel Macron has participated in recent days in several meetings on this vaccine issue, including the last Wednesday with African leaders, to advocate for an acceleration of the availability of vaccines in poor countries. He also spoke Thursday with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the two men sharing “the objective of making the vaccine a global public good”, according to the Elysee.
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